If you want to know the moral truth about the pompous cruelty of fascists in Italy in the early years of Mussolini’s reign, I’d recommend reading his short story about travelling through the country, Che Ti Dice La Patria – just don’t go there for the cold facts and stats. His novel about an old man catching a mythically huge fish has a different relationship to historical events than his novel about the Italian front in the first world war. Hemingway’s short stories are different to his journalism, for instance. We have to do some internal calculations to work out exactly where that truth lies. Yet, this idea does also have obvious complications. There’s a different kind of truth to be found in how he describes the downhill rush of skiing, the taste of Spanish red wine, or how it feels to know you’ve lost the love of your life. Write the truest sentence that you know.” It doesn’t matter that Papa sat there and made things up. We all understand what Hemingway meant when he explained how he produced fiction: “All you have to do is write one true sentence. We accept that fiction tells us the truth, even if that’s a contradiction in terms. It’s here that the definition of truth becomes complicated. It has helped hundreds of thousands of people understand a situation that has been largely forgotten, while telling a story that feels truthful – but is also clearly a work of fiction. Both in Nigeria and around the world, it was many people’s introduction to the Biafran conflict. Among other things, Half of a Yellow Sun is one of the great truth-telling novels.

Chimamanda half of a yellow sun